bromeara8 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Episode 474: How to Reconfigure the Fireworks with Yi Shun Lai

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever!

Personal News and/or Shoutouts for Pals

Hey CNFers, The Front Runner is officially out. I like to think I don’t ask for much, but now is the time buy a copy or three and, if you read it, you know the drill, need ratings and reviews. I won’t read them because I don’t want to be driven insane, but that’s the world we live in: ratings and reviews. Your call to action to support the book, me, and ye ol’ CNF Pod. If you’re still on the fence, and why would you be, there’s an excerpt of the book over at Lit Hub. Dig it.

I also started what’s proving to be a pretty popular venture called Pitch Club. It’s at welcometopitchclub.substack.com and I have a writer audio annotate a pitch. It’s tactical and it’s practical. It’s going to help you get where you want to go.

“There is this myth that you are a writer only if you are butt in chair, banging away at your keyboard for eight hours and then the rest of the time on a fainting couch somewhere, noodling over your ideas. And that kind of imagery does a lot of damage to young writers today.” — Yi Shun Lai

The Joy of Leaving Amazon Reviews: Getting Two Feet Inbounds

By Brendan O’Meara

Ok but listen: I don’t like Amazon.

I don’t have a Prime account.

I very, very, very rarely order anything from Amazon. But I realize I’m in the vast minority there.

That said, for authors big and small, Amazon ratings and reviews matter. Many book readers (the few who remain) out there buy their books from Amazon. Or, if they don’t, they look for the validation of a highly rated title. I’m assuming on that last bit of insight.

So I’ve been taking great joy in leaving short Amazon reviews for authors who come on this podcast, something I’ve historically not done.

Episode 473: Finding the Frame with Hampton Sides

Become a Patron!

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever!

“It’s like trying on clothes when you’re a young writer, early in your career, you’re constantly trying to figure out who you are.” — Hampton Sides, Ep. 473

Episode 472: Melissa Febos and the Art of Personal Exploration with ‘The Dry Season’

Become a Patron!

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever!

A mostly accurate transcript for Ep. 472¹

“As soon as I heard people refer to writers as actual people, I thought, ‘oh, my god, is that an option? Because I choose that option.’ And I just latched onto it immediately.” — Melissa Febos, from Ep. 472

Episode 471: The Cassidy Randall Residency at CNF Pod Continues!

Become a Patron!

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever!

A mostly accurate transcript for Ep. 471¹

“I can’t imagine if somebody asked me to share these really vulnerable things and didn’t acknowledge that it’s a gift that that person is giving, and it’s not a gift to the writer. It’s a gift to everybody who will read it.” — Cassidy Randall, from Ep. 471

Episode 470: Megan Baxter is Into Rewilding Her Writing

Become a Patron!

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever!

A mostly accurate transcript for Ep. 470¹.

“It’s also just confidence and knowing that it’s still there, and knowing that you are a writer when you are not writing.” — Megan Baxter, from Ep. 470

Sunday Funday: It’s Pub Week

By Brendan O’Meara

Become a Patron!

I tend to overthink things. Like … if I start blogging, which I love, I get into my head that it needs to be on a regular day and it has to be this repeatable thing otherwise nobody’s gonna read it. That puts pressure on myself and I inevitably crash after doing it for a couple days or weeks. The exception being ye ol’ CNF Pod.¹

But I do love a good Sunday reading experience. Harkens back to my childhood when my dad would unpack The Boston Globe and chuck the comics at me. This was back in the day when you could legit throw your back out picking up the Sunday paper if you didn’t lift with your legs.

Episode 469: John O’Connor on the Meaning of Bigfoot

Become a Patron!

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever!

A mostly accurate transcript for Ep. 469¹

“I don’t feel envy. I don’t think. Maybe in some deeper and maybe even more troubling psychological level. I do feel competition with people, competition over resources, trying to claim certain ideas, stake a claim to certain ideas before other people can, especially when you’re working with a subject that’s in the public sphere. You don’t have any personal, any real wider claim to something than somebody else. It can be nerve wracking.” — John O’Connor, from Ep. 469

Episode 468: Local Journalism and the Folly of Fame with Maggie Messitt

Become a Patron!

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever!

Episode 467: How to Bounce Back from ‘Viscerally Negative’ Feedback with Will Bardenwerper

Friday, May 9, 2025

Become a Patron!

Who’s on the docket for the Friday matinee, looks like it’s Will Bardenwerper, author of The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid and most recently, Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America (Doubleday).

The story takes us to Batavia, New York in the western part of the state not too far from Buffalo. Batavia used to be home to the minor league Muckdogs but was wiped out during Major League Baseball’s consolidation of dozens of minor league teams, teams that were often the beating hearts of so many communities. What took that team’s place was a wood-bat college baseball summer league similar to the Cape Cod League, but not quite as awash in talent.